Blog

Not What I Expected – A Freshman’s Perspective

Eighth grade was comfortable, seventh grade was comfortable, basically my whole life was comfortable. So finding out I was going to a boarding school three hours away from home was WAY out of my comfort zone.

I mean, I just got out of middle school, barely ready to face the world and now I was expected to survive away from home. No freaking way.

So maybe I was being a little dramatic. It couldn’t be that bad, but my subconscious begged to differ. All I could imagine was a cold and unloving place where I would be forced to retreat within myself and live a cold miserable high school existence–as I said a little dramatic.

My whole life I’d been playing it safe. I may not have had the world’s greatest social life, but I had books, Netflix, and two best friends. I was doing great living my comfortably dry and familiar life.

But BMA was not what I expected, like at all.

I was expecting something like The Bratz movie, stereotypes everywhere. Cliques for every type of people–emos, the populars, jocks, and nerds. And I guess if you really needed to you could stereotype some people, but the kids at BMA don’t really see that. Everybody is friends with everybody. No separation of grades (except for senior privileges), no one is judging you for being the world’s most awkwardest and outspoken kid, and no one has a problem that you might sometimes act like a total hippie. People here actually take time to know you.

BMA has showed me that I can’t just hide myself away from the world, and even though I was making progress on my journey to grow myself as a person, BMA gives me more to look at then the same cream­-colored walls of a townhouse in Germantown, Maryland.

I know it’s barely my first year here, but for the first time, in like ever, I don’t feel as though I have to identify as anything. And that’s an awesome feeling.

–Chelsea Casseus, Freshman

Featured Photo taken at S.A.L.T. (Student Association Leadership Training). Chelsea is front row, second from the right.